July 27, 2006
It’s 10:30 on a thursday night, I’m in my $5 Dar market dress, hair in ponytai, watching a Discovery Channel show about the differences b/w male and female serial killers. 3 loads of laundry whirring in basement, oscillating fan failing to circulate the air in my sticky, stuffy living room. I’m sitting beside the one open window; closed the other window an hour ago due to lack of screen and discovery of giant flying thing in my foyer.
I am playing house, and playing doctor (nurse, actually), taking care of the M.A.S., who is lying in my bed on the beginning of a seemingly hallucinatory journey through a virus that’s going around campus (turns out MIT has a rash of measles going around as well - pun intended - apparently what happens when the vaccination-skeptical arrive on the shores of the Charles for the education to which their home-schooled curriculum has always aspired).
He has been in bed for over 12 hours w/101-103 deg fever (discovered when i had to go to 24-hr CVS in watertown at 6am to buy digital thermometer cuz he was BURNING). Doc says is beginning of 3-5 DAY! virus - we had Sox tickets for tomorrow night, have been looking forward to game for 2 months - he is supposed to be at his worst tomorrow night. my uncle and cousin are taking the tix. 
As mentioned, in one role, I am playing cooped-up-currently-loving-but-waiting-to-get-sick-and-then-resentful housewife, washing sweaty sheets and tshirts, and sweating to death in my little apt that has an a/c sitting on floor of hall closet because i have been away all summer and 6 ft 1 boyfriend is now dying a slow, feverish death in my bed rather than installing it for me.
In a concurrent role, I am playing nurse, trying to live up to my mother (and now 2 cousins), of diagnosing and treating M.A.S. symptoms in no-nonsense yet sympathetic manner. Long conversation with doctor included instructions for treating him and validation of my own performance in this role. Follow-up phone reviews with my mother include reminscing about my own medical history and thus risk of succumbing to dastardly illness. She asks whether there is not somewhere else he can sweat this out; at this point, I am a little too captivated by my own role as Florence Nightingale and too much of a worrier to not assume he’s dead when he doesn’t pick up the phone in his Tylenol-PM induced sleep (like this afternoon when I called ~8 times in 3 hours and then took a cab home from the T station down the street because I could no longer wait out the 15 minute walk).
Sigh. Overall, each day is a new experiment in this concept known as Commitment (aka Togetherness, Intimacy, Having a Boyfriend). At some point I will fully cease standing outside myself and take part in this relationship I am often observing unfold. For now, my Virgo fastidiousness is soothed by sorting and folding laundry, and my goal-oriented nature is briefly satisfied by the momentarily cool temp of the M.A.S.’s forehead. For some reason, I have a million cable channels usually scrambled, and I am stealing time with The Daily Show before Comcast catches on. If only I had some friends in the ‘hood, we could sit on my stoop and finish the open bottle of Veuve-Cliquot in my fridge. I have a few minutes b/w the nurse’s 3-11 and 11-7 double shift I’m working here.
July 21, 2006
Planning and development frequently put “white do-gooders” like myself (thanks, Mr. H!) in relatively foreign cultures, whether it be overseas work or urban inner-cities in the U.S. What we in the business like to call the “trust fund babies” might find themselves working with Tanzanian women in microfinance lending circles, adolescent Latinas on the Lower East Side, or displaced, elderly African-American public housing residents. Connecting with people on a personal level is something I work really hard at, in any situation, but in culturally different environments (say, for example, New Orleans), I spend a lot of time observing, taking notes when possible, and trying to make sense of people’s meanings. And sometimes their comments just stick with me.
Wednesday night at a neighborhood planning meeting, one of the members of the Louisiana Recovery Authority – the state agency responsible for overseeing development (a la the LMDC in Lower Manhattan) – spoke to a room of New Orleanians about coordinating state activity with local neighborhood-level planning initiatives. I’m starting to get a little paranoid about describing my work after reading two different bloggers talk about getting fired for blogging about their jobs, but this guy is just too good to keep all for ourselves in our idyllic Gulf Coast hamlet. An overweight white guy, he first thanks the room for providing the pork chops in the back (most NOLA public meetings have food), for “pork chops” will get him to any meeting any time. From there he proceeds to reassure the room that all neighborhoods will come back, even if the neighborhoods don’t look the same in the future. But, he emphasizes, it’s important to make sure that all New Orleanians are “swimming in the deep part of the river” and are fully engaged in the process. “No matter how tired you are,” he adds,” get in the boat. We gotta go.” Is it just me as an outsider, but is this incredibly ill-chosen vivid imagery for a room full of flood survivors?
He goes on. It’s like listening to the Boston-Irish head of the AFL-CIO’s mutual fund describe working in Texas (or Mars, he quips), except I speak his language. This Southern politico-business man, he loses my comprehension but captures my attention completely when he explains to one New Orleanian worrying about the details of the planning process:
“don’t worry about the view, just keep loading the wagon.”
That’s me! Or so says the M.A.S. I can’t resist the man who decides I’m intriguing the first time he spots me milling around in the second-skin navy track suit and green conductor’s cap (translation: I haven’t showered today). Communist chic, he called it. (Dirty, I call it.) Baby I like it!
Last week in NOLA for dinner I dressed in white linen pants and a sleeveless, collared, white deep v-neck linen top. He made my heart melt when he told me I looked like a 70s crime-stopper, a la Charlie’s Angels. It’s true, I know my way into the hearts of the early-middle-aged.
Obviously, the Admiration’s Mutual. I came out of the lady’s room in the department one day last fall to find him coming down the hall towards me, with his bald head and goatee more tightly groomed than I’d seen yet. Caught off guard, I exclaimed, “you look mean…and hot!” And wandered off to class. Yes, every girl loves a bad boy, especially one with tortoise shell glasses and a penchant for field trips to urban planning landmarks (e.g., see Kelo v New London: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-108.ZS.html)
I’m on the plane right now from New Orleans to D.C., again clad in all white linen, though the pants and long sleeved shirt seem more reminiscent of Hamptons wealth than fabulous feathered hair law enforcement. Reuniting in D.C. with the M.A.S. tomorrow for the Nationals-Cubs game and wondering if he’ll be in his new age- and weather-appropriate leather mandals, or his stick-it-to-the-man sk8rboy Vans. Either way, looking forward to finding him waiting for me outside the Metro station. Love its long escalator up to the street to give me a dramatic entrance feel as I rush into his arms!
July 20, 2006
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July 18, 2006
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/current/penny.php
by, Andrei Codrescu
(Romanian-born author, poet and commentator from New Orleans)
A different take on the current state of NOLA, in the Gambit Weekly (NOLA version of the Village Voice, Boston Pheonix, etc.). Will make you chuckle, but perhaps want to weep too. I’m not sure if I should be insulted, as one of so many outsiders roaming around down here foolishly - it seems - trying to make a difference. He concludes:
“Another silver lining in the gathering human disaster that is New Orleans pre-K2, is that the vice-riddled of the nation may safely gather here now and indulge. Anyone who might have considered, pre-K, giving up drugs, drink, smoke, sex or whatever, should head this way immediately. We are overflowing with the excess bounty of the nation’s quickly disappearing skid rows. We no longer need to fear, as an editorialist once did, that Katrina destroyed America’s “only party city.” The party’s still on and it’s about 3 a.m. all the time.”
Thanks to the M.A.S. for passing this on!
July 9, 2006
Some of you may have seen my photos from back in January, and there are other NOLA shots at www.mogaphoto.com, from January and March. Attached here are just a few camera-phone shots from a disaster tour given yesterday, over 10 months after the storm. I took two friends from MIT around from noon to 7, with long stops at the Backstreet Cultural Museum in Treme, and the House of Dance & Feathers in the Lower 9th. Finished our long day with whiskeys and tapas at Mimis in the Marigny. All of the pics below are from the Lower 9th Ward, except for the “St. Bernard to Baghdad” photo, which is from the St. Bernard housing project in Gentilly. The largest project in the city, slated for demolition by HUD, even though its storm damage is relatively modest.
My buddy James took a bunch of photos while we were out. Will make those available as soon as he gets them up on the web.
For other images, check out the NEW PAGE on this site: NOLA by Camera Phone. I’ll be adding random images there as I go about life down here. My crude attempt at a photo essay (though I’m still not sure what that is…a little help from the M.A.S., please?)
It’s Sunday afternoon in July in NOLA. It’s sort of still my morning; I got up 2 hours ago. It’s disgustingly hot outside, and the roaches are in full effect every night. In my kitchen sink, on my front stoop. And a rat ran in front of my car 2 nights ago. Sure there’s crime on the rise and trash still on the streets, but add to that the bugs and the heat, and then I really start to wonder, can I deal w/NOLA for the foreseeable future? What am I doing here? Why? Despite my attachment to the city, passion for the post-disaster politics, and intellectual thrill from the complexity of the city’s recovery, I REALLY hate having to wander around my house at night in flip flops lest I step on a roach venturing out of the kitchen towards our office/dining room. And not feeling comfortable riding my bike through Central City anymore, and not having any close friends down here, and sleeping alone in a big house in a city in which I don’t feel particularly safe to begin with, and having to drive everywhere, and eating large, fried meals more often than needed, and having every little thing cost $$, like I’m in Vegas, etc. etc. etc. Whine, whine, whine.
But then there’s moments like now, as the guy behind the counter of the Oak Street Cafe on the corner of Oak and Dublin in Carrollton clears my plate that held a lightly grilled, buttered biscuit. (Fried foods ain’t the only means of rich calorie-consumption down here!) After getting up late, I am showered and washed clean of the dirt and bug bites from my 7 hour disaster tour around the city yesterday (for 2 MIT grads in town). I am sitting at the cafe counter rummaging through emails and news articles, listening to a guy play the piano and having some terrific iced coffee (one of the best offerings of the city - great coffee and free wireless at most cafes/coffeehouses). I had a great sausage egg and swiss cheese on whole wheat toast. The guy next to me at the bar is rolling his own cigarettes. There are fresh flowers on the counter in front of me. I am sharing the moment with all of you thanks to the wireless. It is a great, good, slow, lazy sunday morning/afternoon. The guy behind me at a table is wearing a t-shirt that says across his back, “hell yeah, we’re still here. Chilly Gentilly.”
And for the moment, my attachment to NOLA is renewed. And I am happy.
July 8, 2006
Lying in bed in NOLA w/hair smelling of smoke right now. Music at Tipitinas with friends in town from MIT, along with the roommate and his latest flame (brought to you by myspace.com). This is a first. I won’t broker friendship, but at least there’s peace. and some joint socializing. Allows the M.A.S. and Roomie to shack up all together at Willow Street (tune in to NOLA Melrose Place each Saturday at 9pm CST), and as such gives Roomie a free pass to bring home My Space Gal. We’re rockin’ the roommate vibe.
Space Gal seems sweet, a 28 yr old school teacher from the ‘burbs who willingly let me put my bike in the back of her Saturn station wagon prior to heading to Tips. It didn’t quite fit, and she and I were content to let it hang out the back, chained to the open door. She promised to “drive slow.” I offered up our friend James to hold on to the front wheel from the back seat. And off we would have gone.
But we had 3 men with us, and this haphazard arrangement did not sit well with them. They wanted to remove the front tire, sought rope to secure the door, etc. etc. Finally, one of them ripped a t shirt into strands (admiring his brawn in the process) and they tied the door down over the bike to secure it for the 10 minute ride.
I had to laugh. Last summer I was on Beacon Street in Brookline with a wedding fling-turned-spastic-date when we noticed a woman arranging a mattress on the roof of her car. It looked as if she was going to get in and drive off merely holding the mattress by hand. Seemed fine to me. She probably wasn’t going that far, I surmised. She’d probably slow down, just to be safe. To Fling-Spaz, this was poorly planned and typical of women. Sadly, he didn’t have a chance to expand on his gender theories, as the mattress flew off the car and crushed him when the driver hit a pothole as she flew past us.
Tonight, thanks to a torn t-shirt tying the windshield wiper to the underside of the rear door, Space Gal’s careful driving, the passage of time since November, the support of the M.A.S. and a fabulous shrink in Newton, and the roommate’s clumsy attempts at atonement and reconciliation, we all arrived at Tips safely.
and peacefully.
July 3, 2006
The M.A.S. met my dad this weekend (not to mention a 1,000 other relatives…he later likened it to visiting a foreign country, what with our accents and quirky ethnic customs and all…). My dad is the biggest sports fan I know, and really into games and trivia. He still owes me $6 from a basket I sank when I was 11 and in youth hoops.
So yesterday we’re sitting around the table on my aunt’s back patio at her Cape house; Friday night when we walked up to that same table, my Uncle Kenny (see “my uncle the electrician…” list) asked the M.A.S. mid-handshake, “so what are your intentions with my neice?” My dad intimidates differently. Casually he asks the “table” a baseball trivia question that leads to pen and paper and brooding for 45 minutes for the M.A.S. and my cousin’s husband Mike. FYI, my dad used to write a sports trivia column for the Herald.
I would never know the answer to the question, so I don’t know how to judge the M.A.S. 65% performance (matched by my cousin, from what I can tell). I will let you decide. We posed the same question to Tergie and Steve of the Stern-High Drama set tonight. They got about 6, though Steve’s carrying the question “through to mid-week” before he caves for the rest of the answers.
Who are the 12 baseball players that hit 40 or more home runs in a season who have 4 or fewer letters in their surname?
Welcome to the family.
